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Purse.io, the peer-to-peer marketplace that allows users to exchange their Bitcoins for Amazon products and vice-versa, haspartnered with ShapeShift in order to allow its users to use other crypto currencies aside from Bitcoins. This is made possible through the simple implementation of the “Shifty” button (seen above), which allows users to instantly convert their alt-coins to BTC as long as they’re supported by ShapeShift. At the time of this writing, the list of supported alts is as follows: Blackcoin, BitUSD, Bitshares, BitcoinDark, Clams, Counterparty, Dash, Digibyte, Dogecoin, Feathercoin, Litecoin, Mintcoin, Monero, Namecoin, Nubits, Nxt, Novacoin, Potcoin, Peercoin, Quark, Reddcoin, Ripple, Shadowcash, Startcoin, Tether, Unobtanium and Vericoin. Purse.io CEO Andrew Lee had this to say about the partnership: “We’re excited to partner with Shapeshift.io to deliver huge savings on Amazon.com for not just the bitcoin community, but altcoin community as well, …” An spokesperson on Reddit added: “Since the day we started, we received requests to integrate altcoins. It always seemed like a lot of squeeze for the juice. Plus, we weren’t looking forward to having to keep up with the latest altcoin of the month.Shapeshift solves these problems beautifully. Thanks /u/evoorhees and team for making the integration super simple! …

Bitcoin is now being used more as a currency than as a simple investment commodity, according to data released by bitcoin payment service provider BitPay and IBTimes UK. Most BitPay transactions are for gift cards, followed by IT services, e-commerce, food delivery and a relatively tiny number of precious metals transactions. The total number of bitcoin transactions processed by BitPay more than doubled last year from 209,420 to 563,568, a 170 percent increase. The average order value dropped during the same period by more than 45 percent, from $513 to $281. More than 100,000 retailers now accept bitcoin, according to IBTimes UK, including Microsoft, Dell, Wikipedia, Twitch, Greenpeace, Expedia and PayPal. Fifty-three percent of all bitcoin merchants use BitPay, according to the newly released data. North America is still the largest bitcoin market for BitPay, with 57 percent of their global business. The top emerging markets are Brazil, India and Indonesia with rapid growth in BitPay signups. “We see bitcoin being used in emerging markets as a supplement to the current banking and monetary systems,” said Wouter Vonk, BitPay’s European marketing manager. “Bitcoin breaks down the barriers to financial tools that many people in emerging countries are facing.” Bitcoin mining …